The 2013 movie “Trash” filmed in and around an open dump on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, provides a glimpse of solid waste management in developing countries—and even in industrialized nations where environmental regulations have not kept pace with rapid economic transformation.
With little source separation and processing of waste for recycling, the waste brought to the dump has enough recyclable materials with value to attract a colony of waste pickers who gather up whatever materials they think have value in large sacks to be resold.
The 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) held in Paris can be a catalyst for implementing an integrated solid waste systems in developing countries. Fundamental benefits for improving public health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be realized by such a system.
A circular materials management system segregates waste materials for remanufacturing and recycling; captures biological nutrients; and converts the residuals to renewable fuel and energy products. Such a system avoids groundwater contamination, generates green renewable electricity and steam and reduces vehicle fuel emissions.
Developing countries have an opportunity to benefit from embracing this circular economy approach. Unfortunately, while pickers extract as much value as they can from waste, little resources are dedicated to storing, collecting and managing wastes in a formal integrated approach.
The economies of many developing countries and political priorities just do not align for quantum leaps in investing in better solid waste management. Thus, the challenge to creating value from waste is catalyzing the financial commitment to improving the environment.
Investments in waste management infrastructure will need to be significant to provide the resources necessary for solid waste management with recycling and energy recovery infrastructure.
Whether from public or private sources, providing contractual assurances from creditworthy project participants makes it difficult to achieve the necessary comfort to support project financing. This is a big—hopefully not insurmountable—challenge.
What about the waste pickers who live on or next to the dump in shacks built from reclaimed materials? They live day to day to provide the basics of life for their families in meagre homes made from reclaimed materials.
If the current open dump system changes, this low-income population will be displaced. However, if the waste picker workforce can be converted to paid employment supporting the future infrastructure and services, their families could look forward to better housing, sanitation, nutrition and education.
If the aforementioned is accomplished, a flow of environmentally friendly materials, steam and electricity that could be used to drive new industries in these countries to help grow a country’s economy as well as improve the environment for their children’s children to see!
Gershman, Brickner & Bratton, Inc. (GBB), www.gbbinc.com, is an international solid waste management consulting firm that helps public and private sector organizations craft practical, customized and technically sound solutions for complex solid waste management challenges.
Inspiration and research assistance provided by Eric Weiss, consultant I.
Product spotlight
Departments - Product Spotlight
New and updated products and technology for the waste conversion industry.
Vibratory tables manufactured by Brunswick, Ohio-based Best Process Solutions Inc. (BPS) are available in a broad line of air- or electric-powered models. Features include:
load capacities of up to 10 tons
used for settling product contents in drums, bulk bags, portable bins, bulk boxes, Gaylord boxes and lever packs
available in several configurations: jogger tables, light-duty, flat deck, grid deck, grid deck with rollers, flat deck with scale and grid deck with scale
Cart liners from Wastequip’s Toter brand, Charlotte, North Carolina, are designed to make stinky, messy trash cans a thing of the past, according to the company. Toter’s new “clean to the extreme” solution is designed to eliminate rinsing outdoor carts. Features include:
created with odor eliminators to help combat smell
designed for 48-, 64- and 96- gallon outdoor carts
made with 75 percent recycled material
first full-sized bags designed specifically to fit two-wheel carts
The XR mobil-e is the latest innovation from UNTHA, Austria. It is the first machine of its kind to shred with a low power electric drive and can be easily moved around a production facility and plugged back in, says the company. Features include:
can process a variety of materials, such as municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial, and construction and demolition debris
screens and cutters enable the shredder to be configured according to the output specification with homogenous particles of about 2 to 16 inches achievable
creates minimal dust and combustible material during the shredding process with low fines production
supplied on tracks with an adjustable exit conveyor and ferrous magnet
DataDriven Recycling, Woodbridge, Ontario, has launched DataDocks, a cloud-based software tool designed to help recyclers organize and improve their logistics and communication abilities. Features include:
provides an online platform that allows both the recyclers’ team and its customers the ability to book appointments for the company’s logistics
users can view which trucks are on the property, detailed information about each shipment and track key performance indicators of logistics
BioHiTech America installs digesters in 10 Florida Golden Corral restaurants
BioHiTech Global Inc., a technology company that provides a data-driven solution for food waste disposal announced that its subsidiary, BioHiTech America, based in Chestnut Ridge, New York, has started installing its commercial food waste disposal solution to Golden Corral restaurants in 10 franchised locations throughout Florida.
Privately held Golden Corral Corp., Raliegh, North Carolina, has almost 500 restaurants in 40 states—with 56 restaurants in the state of Florida alone.
Golden Corral franchise owners, Taylor Levy and Marc Verderame, say they wanted to find a disposal solution that considered the environment, while elevating the operational performance of their locations.
BioHiTech’s on-site Eco-Safe digester is designed to allow their Golden Corral restaurants to safely dispose of food waste in the sewer system, while at the same time collecting data and providing real-time reports on the details of what exactly is being wasted.
“Categorizing and quantifying the food waste will help us to measure our sustainability progress and reduce the volume of prepared dishes that do not sell in specific locations,” says owner Taylor Levy.
The digester weighs each increment of waste. It also allows employees to categorize the type of waste, simultaneously transmitting this real-time data to the BioHiTech cloud during the digestion process.
The visibility of the food waste data allows management to identify wasteful preparation and staffing, improve profitability and make important decisions regarding overall operations.
Lindner-Recyclingtech honored with third Global CemFuels Award
Austria-based Lindner Recyclingtech was honored at the 10th Global CemFuels Conference and Exhibition in Prague. The shredder manufacturer was honored for the third time, in the award in the category “Most innovative technology for the use of alternative fuels.”
The Global CemFuels Conference and Exhibition focuses on alternative fuels, particularly for the cement and lime industry. The 2016 event, held Feb. 22 and 23, attracted 170 participants from over 30 countries.
“Since we were privileged to receive this award already in 2009 and 2014, it is all the more pleasing that Lindner-Recyclingtech again was the only shredding equipment manufacturer to be honored by the trust of its customers,” says CEO, Manuel Lindner.
Lindner’s Michael Lackner, Manuel Lindner, Gerd Tischner accept award at 10th Global CemFuels Conference
Lindner belt drives have already performed over 2 million operational hours. What the company describes the system used in its Jupiter series of primary shredders and Komet series of secondary shredders as “robust and virtually maintenance-free.” It is designed to give customers ergonomic accessibility through compact design, low energy consumption by using the kinetic energy stored in the fly wheels as well as simple belt changes that do not require a specialist, according to the company.
To stay close to the needs of its customers in the future, Lindner says it will enlarge its research and development (R&D) center to around 3,280 square feet in 2015. Customer requirement are verified on these test systems and results are subsequently implemented into production.
More than 1,200 Lindner shredders are in operation worldwide.
Hurst Boiler commissions poultry litter-fueled biomass boiler in North Carolina
Hurst Boiler, an international manufacturer of a complete line of gas, oil, coal and hybrid biomass fuel-fired steam and hot water boilers since 1967 based in Coolidge, Georgia, has announced the commissioning of its third poultry litter-fueled boiler.
Prestage AgEnergy of Clinton, North Carolina, is completing the 1,600 horsepower Hurst boiler installation. From fuel receiving through emissions, the boiler is the first Hurst Boiler system in the U.S. designed and engineered specifically to be fueled by poultry litter. This cogeneration facility is scheduled to be commissioned midyear and will support Prestage Farm’s turkey operations.
“While we have been carefully evaluating the potential to use litter in our boilers in the U.S. market, one of our solid fuel boilers in Guatemala began running almost 3 years ago on 100 percent litter simply because it was the most cost effective and reliable fuel,” says Tommy Hurst of Hurst Boiler Inc. “Since then, two more systems have been installed and are providing steam to poultry facilities using only chicken litter.”
Bion develops technology to unlock greater value from livestock waste stream
Bion Environmental Technologies Inc., Crestone, Colorado, a provider of advanced livestock waste treatment technology, announced that over the past three years, it has modified its technology platform to enable the capture of ammonia and its conversion into commercial products, rather than its destruction. This has enabled the production of renewable natural gas from the volatile solids in the waste stream, while maintaining the desired nutrient reductions.
Bion estimates the potential byproduct revenues from renewable energy (and associated carbon-reduction credits) and fertilizer products at Kreider Farms Phase 2 (at full operation), Manheim, Pennsylvania, based on present market prices, to be in the range of $15 million to $20 million.
By capturing the ammonia, Bion not only prevents its impacts to the environment as before, but is now able to recover and process substantially more of the nitrogen in the manure stream into a stabilized value-added product.
Bion filed a patent on this process that recovers a nitrogen-rich, natural, non-synthetic fertilizer in September 2015. Bion is preparing a filing with the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for certification for use in organic production.
The technology platform can now ustilize anaerobic digestion to produce methane, which can then be cleaned and injected into existing pipelines, resulting in a clean renewable compressed natural gas.
The gas can then be delivered anywhere in the country for use as a vehicle fuel, such as California, where it would qualify for significantly more renewable energy credits. Patent protection for the 3rd generation technology platform was filed in September 2014.
BHS grows sales team
Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), Eugene, Oregon, has announced a new organizational structure to its North American sales team, adding three new hires and promoting a veteran employee.
The company says the new separation technology specialists (STS) will focus on applications of core solutions. The all-new STS team consists of Travis Curtis, Randy Roy and Richard Sweet.
The BHS North American sales team, left to right, Ken Smakula, Rich Reardon, Richard Sweet, Randy Roy, James Haidos, Eric Winkler and Travis Curtis.
Curtis joins BHS to cover the Southeast and central U.S.
Roy will cover the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada, while Sweet will cover the northwestern U.S. and western Canada along with having responsibility for continuous technical training for the entire BHS salesforce. New to the regional sales manager role are Ken Smakula, covering the U.S. Atlantic Coast, and James Haidos, responsible for the central U.S. and eastern Canada.
BHS says it is also making capital investments at its Eugene headquarters and at NRT’s headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee.
Greenlane Biogas supplying gas upgrading and recovery systems in British Columbia
Greenlane Biogas has received a contract from Orgaworld Canada, an organic waste treatment company that is part of international waste-to-product business Shanks Group plc, to supply a biogas upgrading system and a carbon dioxide recovery unit for Surrey, British Columbia’s Organic Biofuel Facility.
The facility is currently under construction and will have the capacity to process up to 115,000 metric tons of organic waste—from the city’s curbside collection program and commercial waste from the region—annually.
The organic waste will be fed into anaerobic digesters to generate biogas, which will be upgraded by the system to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) with methane purity greater than 97 percent.
The RNG will be used to fuel the city’s fleet of natural gas waste collection and operations service vehicles, and supply the city-owned district energy system to heat and cool public and privately owned buildings in the City Centre community.
Greenlane Biogas is a global supplier of integrated full system solutions to upgrade biogas released from organic waste to biomethane, a renewable natural gas.
It offers modular upgrading systems to generate an energy source interchangeable with natural gas and has has installed more than 95 systems globally, including two other projects in the British Columbia area.
Pyrolysis project to use Ajax solids handling equipment
Ajax Equipment, a Bolton, U.K.-based solids handling specialist, is supplying hydrocarbon reclamation firm Recycling Technologies, Swindon, U.K., with waste handling equipment for the company’s waste-to-resource pyrolysis system.
Ajax will provide a combined screw feeder and elevator, an agitated screw feeder featuring plug screw and a hopper.
Recycling Technologies says its process uses a fluidized bed pyrolysis system to breakdown mixed plastic waste to produce heavy fuel oil that can be resold into the hydrocarbons market.
Waste material held in the Ajax hopper is transferred into the pyrolysis chamber using a plug screw feeder. A plug is required as the pyrolysis process creates gases that react with oxygen to form unwanted byproducts. The stainless steel screw elevator recycles sand from the fluidized bed back into the pyrolysis process, the company describes.
Matt Green, Recycling Technologies says, “Ajax’s plug screw technology is well matched for pyrolysis as it allows continuous production and prevents by-products forming.”
He condinues, “Ajax has worked on several pyrolysis projects giving them valuable insight on solids handling for pyrolysis, making them the ideal supplier for Recycling Technologies.”
To determine the requirements of the waste handling equipment Ajax carried out tests on multiple materials representing the likely variation.
Bulk waste materials can vary in their size, notes Ajax, therefore, it is recommended that tests are carried out using material from the same source as will be used.
If alternative materials are used the performance of the equipment may alter, affecting the quality of the whole process, the company adds.
More information on Ajax Equipment is available at www.ajax.co.uk.
Vecoplan opens new test lab
Vecoplan, Archdale, North Carolina, has christened its new test lab, which the company describes as “an integral part of Vecoplan’s continuing expansion.”
The lab serves two functions vital to Vecoplan’s long-term goals, according to the company.
“First, it provides a practical hands-on environment to test the feasibility and ensure the quality of our R&D efforts,” says Gary Kolbet, vice president of engineering, Vecoplan LLC.
Bob Gilmore, Vecoplan chief sales officer, adds, “But, just as important, the test lab is set up to provide real world conditions in which customers can view their own waste materials being processed.”
The lab also is configured with an open slot to allow for the installation of other machines on an as-needed basis. One of the semipermanent machines is horizontally fed, while four are vertically fed via hoppers.
The horizontal shredder, a VTH-VU, is equipped with a vibration feed conveyor as well as a pneumatic discharge system. The hopper-feed shredders include a VAZ 1600 M XL T, a V-ECO 1300 and a VAZ 1300 M NewGen.
Specific shredders also feature patented Vecoplan innovations such as the SureCut™ Film & Fiber shredding system and the energy saving HiTorc™ electromagnetic drive technology.
UNTHA UK appoints new managing director
North Yorkshire, U.K.-based UNTHA UK has announced that Marcus Brew has been promoted to the post of managing director. He previously served the company as sales director.
Chris Oldfield, who has led the shredding business since 1997, will become chairman, concentrating on UNTHA UK’s over-arching strategic direction and other wider ambassadorial responsibilities in industry, the company says.
With a sales target of $14 million for the new financial year, the promotion signifies the next stage in UNTHA UK’s organic development.
The UNTHA UK team has grown from a one-man business to 17 employees.
Specializing in shredding solutions for the waste to energy and varied recycling markets, UNTHA now has more than 500 machines in operation throughout the U.K. and more than 9,000 operating worldwide.
Roger Draper joined the senior management team as head of after sales last October, for instance, and sales coordinator Sharon Annat progressed to the role of sales process manager in December.
UNTHA UK also is looking for two more service engineers, a sales manager for spare parts and an office administrator.
Brew has 25 years of experience working with technically complex capital equipment.
He also has extensive commercial acumen, having run his own business too, UNTHA UK says.
Realizing waste’s full potential
Features - International Case Study
Shanks Waste Management’s new facility in South Kirkby, U.K., is maximizing separation technology to extract as much value as possible from the waste stream.
Material recovery facilities (MRFs) typically sort out commodities from single-stream recyclables such as paper and cardboard, plastic, metal containers and glass from single-stream materials collected from residents and commercial customers. While equipment from screens, optical sorters, magnets and eddy current separators and others can achieve a high level of separation, not all materials that are fed through the system are able to be included in the final product. This fraction of material, albeit a small percentage, can add up, especially at facilities that are processing at high volumes. These residuals often end up going to landfills at a cost to the recycler.
In South Kirkby, U.K., Shanks Waste Management has found a way to create value from MRF residuals as well as mixed municipal solid waste (MSW) to achieve nearly zero waste going to landfill, an estimated 95 percent recovery rate. The unique approach involves two separate processing systems.
The two systems, developed by Plessisville, Quebec-based recycling system manufacturer Machinex, separates traditional recyclables in the first system and creates a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) with the second system. Shanks opened the waste treatment facility in January. The combined systems are designed to process 230,000 metric tons of residual waste and recycling from homes and businesses in the Wakefield District of West Yorkshire County, England.
Jonathan Menard, Machinex project director reported in February 2016, “All acceptance tests have been passed and the two systems were commissioned on time.”
Machinex was selected in 2013 by Shanks to design, manufacture and install the two fully independent sorting and recovery systems in separate buildings on the site.
TWO-SYSTEM APPROACH
Machinex describes the first of the two systems as a mixed dry recyclables (MDR) sorting plant, which annually processes 36,000 metric tons of plastic, glass, metal containers, paper and cardboard at a capacity of around 20 metric tons per hour. “A purity rate of 95 percent will be achieved by Machinex screens, optical sorting and a glass clean-up system, an air capture system for plastic film, ferrous magnets and an on ferrous eddy current system,” according to the company.
The autoclave, pictured above, sterilizes the organic material separated from Shank’s Waste Management’s mixed waste processing system in South Kirkby, U.K., to sterilize the material before it is fed into an anaerobic digester.
The second system segregates a variety of materials from MRF residual waste and MSW—material that which previously would have been sent to landfill—at 30 tons per hour, according to Menard. “The MSW facility takes in pure household waste, which contains a wide range of recyclable, nonrecyclable, organic and inert material,” he says.
The main goal of the MSW system is to obtain a final fraction that meets the standards to produce RDF. “The priority is to remove RDF contaminants by maximizing organics recovery and ferrous and nonferrous metals recovery,” the company says.
The RDF produced by Shanks is designed for use by Ferrybridge Multifuel 1 (FM1), a powerstation based in West Yorkshire, U.K., which uses various waste-derived fuels for its 70-megawatt (MW) power station. (See sidebar “From Fuel to Power.”)
A vibratory screen segregates the organic fraction from other waste. It is then treated using an autoclave before being sent to an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant. Ferrous and nonferrous metals, plastic film, paper and plastics can be sorted by a combination of air treatment systems, ballistic separators, optical sorters, magnets and eddy current separators.
FUEL FLEXIBILITY
An important aspect of the second system is flexibility, since the plant operator can select the most appropriate recyclables to be recovered according to market values and the desired calorific value of the RDF produced, explains Machinex.
Menard says the main flexibility with the MSW system is centered around the ability of the system to produce an RDF output material to meet customer specifications.
“The installed equipment has the ability to control the calorific value of the fuel, dependent on client specification and/or requirement,” he says.
The remaining organic fraction is treated using an autoclave. The autoclave gets the organics ready for the digester. “This process will sterilize the remaining material before it is fed into an anaerobic digestion plant, where it will be converted to biogas for renewable energy generation,” Menard explains.
“The MSW facility has been designed to maximize the removal of organics at a very early stage within the process,” Menard describes. “This material first has the metal removed and is then conveyed directly into the feed system for the autoclave process.”
The energy produced from the 65,000 metric-ton-per-year digester will power the plant and export energy back to the grid—enough to power 3,000 homes. The residue from the digester will be used as a nutrient-rich soil conditioner, according to Menard. Shanks is still commissioning the anaerobic digestion portion of the plant.
An aerial view of Shanks Waste Management’s South Kirkby, U.K., facility, which includes a materials recovery facility processing recyclables; a mixed waste processing facility producing refuse-derived fuel and organics from household and commercial mixed waste; and an anaerobic digestion facility.
SET APART
Menard says building two systems at one facility “represents a real showcase as it includes two significant facilities installed in front of each other.”
He adds, “The overall facility has the capability to process a wide range of materials delivered to the site. Allowing householders to deliver direct to the sites household waste recycling center (HWRC). Any of these materials delivered can typically be processed by one of the installed processes, within the individual process buildings.”
Nigel Catling, Shanks’ capital infrastructure director says. “Machinex worked closely with the Shanks team and Wakefield Council to deliver two efficient facilities in South Kirkby. Both of these facilities were swiftly brought into use, delivering good throughputs and quality materials.”
Catling says Shanks is working to optimize both systems to fulfill their full potential.
The author is editor of Renewable Energy from Waste and can be reached at ksmith@gie.net.
Transitioning to a circular economy requires collaboration
Features - Circular economy perspective series
Dow Chemical’s global director of sustainable markets and product strategy shares why the circular economy is vital to business.
Many of our planet’s natural resources are in short supply—fresh water is scarce and fossil fuel supplies are finite.
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, as recently as five years ago, roughly 65 billion tons of raw materials were generated. In another five years that figure is expected to grow to 82 billion tons.
The costs for businesses, governments and society are burdensome. We must learn to use our precious natural resources more wisely and change our behavior to ensure a sustainable planet. This is not just good stewardship—it is good business.
We live in a linear economy based on “take-make-dispose” consumption, where the goods we use every day are manufactured from raw materials and discarded as waste. At Dow, we are committed to leading the transition to a circular economy that recycles, reuses and remanufactures goods.
Products and materials should be designed to be reused. What can’t be reused should be repurposed and converted into something else—that way products and materials will retain their highest utility, service and value.
Circular supply chains that increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture have the potential to generate more than $1 trillion per year by 2025, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Transitioning to a circular economy is not only vital to the preservation and protection of our planet’s resources, but also the future of business success at Dow. As a global company working at the intersection of the sciences, we are uniquely positioned to take a leading role in supporting the development and implementation of the circular economy, taking into account a product’s life cycle—from creation to use to disposal.
Here are just a few of the key initiatives and technologies we’ve developed to convert items formerly thought of as “waste” into new products and services.
Eunice Heath
Through a public-private partnership, Dow Terneuzen in the Netherlands, our largest chemical processing plant outside of the U.S., reuses 30,000 cubic meters of municipal wastewater each day to generate steam and supply manufacturing plants. Dow Terneuzen has reduced its energy use by 95 percent compared to the energy cost needed for conventional desalination of seawater—that’s the equivalent of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons each year. By 2020, Dow aims to entirely eliminate its reliance on freshwater at Terneuzen.
One of our circular economy opportunities is in the area of recycling. Despite the continued expansion of recycling programs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates more than half of waste in the United States goes to landfills. Dow recognizes there is untapped value in the nonrecycled plastics that end up in landfills.
In collaboration with the public and private sector, Dow set out to recover the embedded energy of nonrecycled waste in Citrus Heights, California, a city of 85,000 people northeast of Sacramento.
As the first of its kind project in the United States, the 2014 Energy Bag Pilot Program demonstrated that plastics that were previously unable to be recycled can be collected and converted into a usable energy source—such as synthetic crude oil.
For three months, the residents of Citrus Heights collected items such as candy wrappers, chip bags, juice pouches and plastic dinnerware in Energy Bags that were picked up alongside their recycling bins. Together, approximately 3 tons of items were diverted from landfills and converted into 512 gallons of synthetic crude oil.
Roughly 30 percent of Citrus Heights residents participated in the pilot. If given a chance again, nearly 80 percent of residents said they would take part. That response gives us confidence that similar recycling programs can eventually become commonplace.
Just think, if we could expand and implement this program across the country, we could keep more than 4 million tons out of landfills. That’s enough to produce 1 billion gallons of fuel a year.
“A circular economy cannot be achieved by a single company or sector. It requires courageous collaboration among partners who understand the dual mission of financial value and societal change.” – Eunice Heath
While this wouldn’t eliminate the need for hydrocarbon-based fuels, it would substantially reduce the amount of natural resources being tapped to serve the country’s energy needs. And it would advance a circular economy.
Dow has long been committed to creating sustainable solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges and will continue this commitment as we work toward our 2025 Sustainability Goals. Over the next decade, Dow will collaborate across the public and private sectors to deliver six major projects to facilitate the world’s transition to a circular economy.
A circular economy can’t be achieved by a single company or sector. It requires courageous collaboration among partners who understand the dual mission of financial value and societal change.
Together, we will demonstrate how the principles of reuse and recovery can help close resource loops and give old products new life.
Eunice Heath is global director, sustainable markets and product strategy, and Dow 2025 sustainability goals circular economy implementation leader for Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Michigan.
